Young voters are target of site poking fun at Harper
Seven political cartoonists join get-out-vote effort
Combine “lampoon” with the last name of Stephen Harper and you end up with Harpoon, a website launching this week that aims to energize younger voters by mercilessly skewering our prime minister.
With an election in the fall, a group of mostly young activists hopes to combine fun factoids, social media and the talents of several wellknown cartoonists to raise the dismally low rates of political participation by of young Canadians.
“We’re an eclectic bunch of comedy lovers, heartwarmingly united by disgust for our exceptionally bad overlord,” the site (at harpoon2015.ca) proclaims.
“Amongst all of us, there is great concern that young people aren’t voting and it’s their future that’s at stake. So we’re trying to engage young voters in a way that they’ve never been approached before,” said site co-founder Lauchlan Rogers, 24, a recent York University graduate.
Rogers said he and a small cadre of friends looked at a other get-out-thevote sites aimed at young people and “they all seem to be finger-wagging and shaming people for not voting. We don’t think that works and the last thing we want to do is shame young people or patronize them.”
Rogers notes ruefully that in the 2011federal election there were more than seven million Canadians between 18 and 35 who were eligible to vote, yet only 42 per cent did so.
Besides 12 issue-oriented subject areas, ranging from privacy to science to defence, the site includes information on how to become a registered voter.
Rogers said there will be a major effort to reach out to young voters with new content such as editorial cartoons and GIFs.
The site features work from contributors including Grahame Arnould, cartoonist for British Columbia’s Georgia Straight.
The other cartoonists include Greg Perry, Dan Murphy, Wes Tyrell, Gareth Lind, John Fewings and Bob Krieger.
“As a friend of mine said once in a different context, humour is the lubricant which makes ideas penetrate. That’s not my quote, but it’s a good one,” Arnould said. “In the end, good cartoonists aim to shine a light on the truth.”
Arnould said he’s grown increasingly alarmed by the “anti-democratic” actions of the Harper government.